There was nothing left for Tom to do but wait. He tried to see Adam, but the old man from before answered the door and stated firmly that Adam couldn’t be disturbed. After wandering the halls a bit, Tom decided he could at least wait with Hope. He managed to return to his room and changed into his loose white outfit for use in Hope, then found his way to the courtyard.

Weird wood and metal parts lay scattered around on the ground like toys in a playroom. The courtyard had been cleared of bodies, leaving the ground a choppy ocean of dirt. A wooden platform had been winched ten feet off the ground, on which Taka stood, doing something to Hope’s left hand.

Tom waved. “Hi, Taka!” he said.

Taka looked down, tiredly pumped a hand in the air, then returned to work.

“Can I help you?” Tom called out.

“No,” replied Taka, his head still buried in Hope’s hand.

Tom sighed; he wouldn’t get much conversation out of Taka today. But that was all right with Tom, since he’d never had problems entertaining himself. He wandered around the courtyard, examining the parts that lay around.

They were, in a word, weird. Some looked like large pieces of a clock: gears that fit together, or metal springs; even a fabric tube that looked like it might use some kind of air compression. Others were totally alien to him: an interlocking set of wooden circles, metal half-spheres that fit inside each other, bars and chains that looked to Tom like a thoroughly tangled puzzle.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” came a voice behind him. Tom jumped, and turned to see Taka standing behind him, grinning. Dark circles lined his eyelids. “Some times, I’m amazed that I can keep track of it all.”

“How do you know how all of this fits together?” Tom asked.

Taka swayed a bit before answering. “I just started taking it apart and putting it back together. After I f-failed and Lord Brask let me work on it, there wasn’t much else to do.”

“Failed?” Tom asked, leaning forward.

Taka continued to sway on his feet, his smile turning sad and thoughtful. “I…tried to be a pilot. I really did. I sat inside for…well, it felt like hours. Nothing happened.” His face brightened. “But now, at least I can work on Hope! At least I can be around it. And when you fly, Tom, sometimes I feel like I’m flying…too….”

His eyes rolled up in his head, and Taka fell to the ground, unconscious. Tom yelled and rushed forward, and the yell was taken up by the guards on top of the walls. Tom sat next to Taka, but had no clue what to do, so he just put a hand on Taka’s chest. It rose and fell.

A courtyard door flew open and several people strode into the courtyard: the old man from before, and two teenage boys carrying a stretcher. The old man gently sat down next to Taka and laid hands on him. The old man’s eyes were bright and focused intently on Taka. After a few seconds, he removed his hands and gestured to the teenagers, who carefully slid Taka onto the stretcher.

The old man stood and gave Tom a kind smile. “He will be fine,” he said. “He just needs sleep. And your friend Adam will be fine, as well, but he will need several more days in our care.”

“When can I talk to him?” Tom asked.

The old man’s smile widened. “Come see me tomorrow,” he said.

Tom nodded, and the old man swept away, out of the courtyard, followed by the two teenagers carrying Taka on the stretcher. When the old man reached the door, he stopped and bowed as Alyas strode out. Her eyes widened at the stretcher, but she exchanged a few words with the old man, and she looked reassured. The men returned to the darkness of the castle while Alyas strode out to meet Tom.

She smiled at Tom; he did not return it. He was getting tired of being smiled at. “Have you talked to Brask this morning?” Tom asked, trying to be as business-like as possible.

Alyas looked a bit taken aback at this, but she nodded. “You are to attack the nest north of us today?”

“Yes.” Tom looked up at Hope and saw that Taka had pulled the platform back. “Looks like Hope is ready.”

A frown darkened Alyas’ face. “I do not like what you are doing. I think it is too dangerous.”

Tom turned, pushing down anger. It must have shown on his face, because Alyas took a step back, then swallowed and continued with large eyes. “The Trych are so dangerous!” she said. “You and Adam are having enough troubles as it is. How can you expect to succeed in their own nest?”

Tom shook his head. “I don’t know how much I can do in there. But that doesn’t matter. We have to do this.”

She looked back at him, her face a mask of worry. “But why?”

He sighed. She was more clueless than the average third-grader. He thought back. When he spoke again, it was with the even voice of someone describing a memory.

“At school, there were always kids being picked on by this one big kid named Michael. Michael liked to call kids names, then depending on how they reacted, he’d track them down later and beat them up. Worse, he’d tag after a kid for weeks and weeks, teasing them and shoving them around when no one was looking.

“I never could figure out what would make him go after you and what wouldn’t. But I did know that they all shrank into a corner when he did.

“One day, he came after me. But I made it hard on him. I tried to stay around grown-ups as much as I could. And when he did finally get me when there was no one else around, I didn’t back into a corner. I made fists and went at him.”

Alyas asked softly, “What happened?”

Tom snorted. “I think I hit him once or twice, not enough to hurt. I had no idea what I was doing. He beat me up, bad. I was sore for days.” He paused. “But I kept fighting right to the end, and his last few kicks didn’t have any heart in them. After that, he still called me names and picked on me. But he never came after me again.”

Tom spied the ladder, walked over, picked it up, and hoisted it into place, then turned to Alyas. “Can you hold this for me?” he asked.

Solemnly, Alyas strode forward and grasped the ladder, her hands firm. Tom climbed the ladder, and it was as steady as if it were lying on the ground.

As he folded himself into the cockpit, he heard the scrape of the ladder being pulled away. Once he settled himself, he saw Alyas praying below him, and Hope closed up and went transparent. Tom took a deep breath. Now I get to see if all those words mean anything, he thought.

He levitated up and spun around, putting the mountain range on his right. He leaned forward and flew north, passing over the castle walls then over the forest. He descended until the trees skimmed by below him. He tried to feel the excitement of flying, but dread had settled on his heart.

The forest began to thin out. He slowed and looked at the trees, which now seemed strange. They were missing large branches and tops. He realized they’d been eaten, probably by Trych. He swallowed.

The forest thinned out and Tom found himself on the edge of a huge pit in the earth, at least fifty feet wide. The ground around it was dark and hard-packed, and covered with smashed barrels and wheelbarrows. The Trych had not been kind.

Tom floated down to the ground just outside the pit. It looked like a war zone. What little trees remained in the hundreds of yards around the pit were chewed into little more than sticks.

He looked around, wondering why he hadn’t seen any Trych yet. He peered down into the pit itself, which became sheer rock only a few dozen yards below ground level. A human-sized ramp had been carved into the wall of the pit opposite him, and curled down into the complete blackness below. The late afternoon sun wasn’t helping much, and it was getting on towards evening.

He took another deep breath, knowing there was nothing left to do but go down there. He lifted himself up, feeling Hope levitate a few yards above the ground, and skimmed over to the top of the pit. He felt his stomach twist as he looked down into the darkness. And he dropped.

Tom immediately put on the brakes and dropped slowly, as it became darker and darker by the second. He began to squint at the sides of the pit, following that ramp as it curled down into darkness. Tom became aware of a faint light, and realized that Hope had begun to glow, faintly at first, then more until Tom could see the mottled sides of the pit all around him, even though he was already at least a hundred yards down.

The pit walls were now bumpy and slick like oil. Tom slowed and stopped, and peered harder at the pit walls. The bottom dropped out of his stomach as he realized what he was seeing. A few of the bumps flickered, then stretched—they were Trych clinging to the sides of the walls.

For an instant, he was so afraid he couldn’t think. Then he realized that he was here to kill Trych, and now they were all around him. He threw out his arms and his blades slid out and locked into place. He sliced at the nearest wall.

Within seconds Trych flew out and covered him completely, hacking away at his armor. There were so many that they were weighing him down, and he began to drop further into the pit. He strained, slashing and cutting, but there was so much weight he could hardly move. He pushed down panic. He had to think of something.

He put his arms out and began to spin as fast as he could. He had so much weight on him that he spun faster and faster, and the Trych couldn’t hold on. Tom’s head began to pound with pain. He gritted his teeth, closed his eyes, and kept spinning. Trych began flying off of him simply from the force of his spin. A few tried to get close enough to cut at him, but they were knocked away into the cloud of Trych hovering around him.

Finally he was free of enough of them that he could really move. He flew upwards, slowing his spin as much as he could, but he was still going so fast that he spiraled upwards in a crazy twist.

He burst upwards into the thin evening light, followed by a stream of Trych. He pulled himself to a vicious halt and turned, ignoring his headache. He swept his blades into the cloud of bugs as they came at him, killing dozens at once. He began cutting and slicing furiously, allowing none of them the chance to get close. They didn’t charge in this time; they stayed away from his blades and darted in where he seemed to be unprotected. But he was too fast for them, as well as too big. He could knock away any bug that got too close, much less slice it in half.

But they kept coming at him, and he kept stabbing and cutting and jabbing and slicing. They wouldn’t stop. Hope began to droop towards the ground, until finally Tom set himself down on the packed earth and continued fighting from there. Still, the bugs came. They began to get closer, latching onto his back for several seconds before he could scrape them off. He began to stumble as he attacked. He was suddenly hungry, and he realized he was getting very low on energy.

The Trych pulled back, and like a river they flew away from him and streamed back into the pit. Within seconds, Hope was alone. The silence almost hurt. Tom frowned and looked around, but there was nothing to explain this…until he felt a faint vibration in the ground. He looked back at the pit. A huge form rose from the pit’s mouth, a vaguely humanoid shape backlit by the setting sun. It looked at least as big as Hope. It floated towards him and set itself down facing square at him.

Tom balled his hands into fists. He was tired. He didn’t really want to fight; he wanted a big meal and a warm bed. And this thing was keeping him from it. He felt his frustration turn to anger, and used it as fuel.

Tom let out a warrior’s scream and charged forward at the Giant Trych, pointing his right blade forward and keeping the other to one side. The Giant Trych skipped to Tom’s right and cut down with a blade towards Tom’s now unprotected right arm. Tom dove downwards and the Giant Trych’s blade missed, but he could almost feel the blade swish by Hope’s arm.

Hope was down on one knee now, so Tom swung his right arm around at the Giant Trych, which flew back a couple dozen yards. Tom came to his feet and charged again, this time swinging hard. The Giant Trych put up its arms and knocked Tom’s blades away, the metal clanging like bells, and the Giant Trych bouncing backwards with the impact. Tom hacked at it again, and it repeated the move, though again it had to step back with the force of his blow.

That tickled the back of Tom’s mind, but he couldn’t figure out why. In that instant, the Giant Trych punched at him, curving the path of its arm so that wicked blade could go right through Hope’s head.

Tom scurried backwards, and the Giant Trych leapt at him again, both arms spread wide. Without thinking, Tom leapt at it, slamming Hope into it so hard his teeth rattled. He threw the Giant Trych to the ground, and suddenly that thing that had been tickling at his mind came to the fore.

This thing was smaller than him, and it was faster than him. But it wasn’t as strong as him. He leapt onto the Giant Trych, put his left hand on its shoulder, and with the other grabbed its left arm near the elbow. And with every ounce of his strength, he pulled.

The Giant Trych went tense, but there was nothing it could do. Its legs began to beat the ground, but it had no leverage. Tom kept pulling, feeling his muscles strain, little sparkles appearing in his vision, and then he heard a pop. He let go a bit, then yanked again with all his might.

The arm ripped free. Bits of armor and muscle flew into the air and a dark liquid spurted all over him. The Giant Trych opened its horrible mouth and screamed.

The scream sounded human.

Tom scuttled off of it, horrified. The Giant Trych turned and ran back towards the pit, finally levitating into the air then dropping down into the darkness. Tom watched it go, that scream still echoing in his mind. Was the Giant Trych another Giant Armor? Did it have a pilot?

Tom’s stomach heaved. He leaned over, exhaustion washing over him. He knew he couldn’t fight any more, and decided blearily that he’d be better off getting back to the castle before the normal-sized Trych came back.

He stumbled back in the direction of the castle, then levitated and flew the rest of the way, flying so low he was barely clearing the treetops.

He came within sight of the castle and, for a few moments, thought his eyes were so tired they were making the castle shimmer in front of him. He rubbed his eyes, but the castle walls still pulsed weirdly. That’s when he realized they were covered with Trych.

He hung his head. He felt inward for energy, but he had none. But he knew he had to fight. He looked back at the castle and gritted his teeth.

He would finish this.

He surged forward, coming up on the castle within seconds. He used his blades to sweep Trych off the walls. Bodies flew everywhere. He didn’t have to worry about accidentally hurting any people, since the few humans still on the wall were clearly dead.

He cleaned most of the Trych off one section of outer wall, then got a good look inside. His stomach heaved again. It was a writhing blanket of Trych, on the walls, in the courtyard. Some were even streaming into broken doors and windows, though most of them were still barred or shuttered. They weren’t even paying attention to Hope.

He leapt into the courtyard, smashing Trych beneath his feet, and leapt at the broken courtyard doors. The Trych made no attempt to avoid him as Tom smashed and sliced and swept Trych aside. He raked his fingers across the walls with enough force to send Trcyh smashing into other walls or the courtyard, hard enough to kill. He tried to see inside the windows, to see if anyone was safe, but all he could see were bodies—human and Trych—and the occasional living Trych scurrying past.

By now, the Trych had begun fleeing the courtyard, rising like a dust cloud to settle into the two other courtyards. This courtyard was now almost completely motionless, the ground covered with heaps of tangled bodies. Tom leapt up a hundred feet, then came down in an adjacent courtyard.

It took him ten minutes to clear that one, same as he had the first. His muscles screamed in protest, but he pushed down the pain and kept swinging. He barely cleared the inner wall into the third courtyard, and this time the Trych leapt at him. He fought desperately, slicing Trych to pieces and smashing himself against the castle walls to destroy hangers-on. His mind was far too gone to think up any strategies; he fought with the straightforward determination of a robot.

After what felt like hours of combat in which the Trych could make no further progress, they began to retreat. He didn’t even bother to fly after them. He just collapsed. The remaining Trych seemed uninterested in further combat, and flew away. Everything was slowing down for Tom. He watched the Trych stream out of broken castle doorways and windows and fly away, like seeds drifting away from a pod.

Hope fell to its hands and knees. The hatch opened, and the last thing Tom saw before blacking out was an unending mass of dead bodies, rushing up at him.

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